Australian bird of the year 2017: vote for your favourite

From the promiscuous willy wagtail to the magnificent but slightly terrifying cassowary, Australia has an abundance of wonderful native birds. Vote here to determine the bird of the year 2017. A shortlist of 51 finalists has been selected – if your favourite is not included, you can add it. The poll is open until 9 December 2017. You only get one vote – use it wisely.

The Guardian is running the Australian bird of the year for 2017 poll in partnership with BirdLife Australia.

The finalists were narrowed down based on recommendations from Guardian readers, Guardian staff and BirdLife Australia. Now we are calling on the public to select their favourite from the list.

The poll will stay open until 9 December, after which the winner will be announced. If you feel the best Australian bird has been ignored, we have included an option for you to add it yourself.

If a write-in campaign is waged, a bird not on the shortlist could win. Birdy McBirdface will not be considered.

Update: suspicious voting activity was detected for the powerful owl on Monday 20 November, and further investigation identified automated voting for this bird. A large number of votes have been removed.

Second update: another attempt at automated voting for the powerful owl was detected on Tuesday 21 November. These votes have been removed, along with a number of other votes coming from the same source.